Kathryn Bigelow Films | Kathryn Bigelow Filmography | Kathryn Bigelow Biography | Kathryn Bigelow Career | Kathryn Bigelow Awards

If nothing else, Kathryn Bigelow has lastingly scotched the assumption that the terms ?woman director? and ?action movie? are somehow incompatible. She herself has grown understandably weary of questioning along these lines, responding tersely that she does not see directing as ?a gender-related job.? But it is undeniable that no other female director has shown herself so adept at handling the intricate, kinetic ballets of stylized violence indispensable to the current Hollywood action genre. At the same time, Bigelow has never been content simply to adopt the language of the genre to produce routine, competent roller-coaster exercises; instead, she transforms it, through her own preoccupations and distinctive vision, into something wholly individual.

Not content with simply colonizing genre material, Bigelow bends and blends it into fertile new mutations. Her co-directed first feature, The Loveless , put a dreamy Sirkian spin on the standard biker movie. Near Dark is a vampire Western, Blue Steel laces a cop drama with horror film conventions, and Point Break crosses a surfing movie with a heist thriller. For Strange Days Bigelow mixed an even richer cocktail: science fiction plus love story plus political satire plus murder mystery. All, though vigorously paced and tinged with ironic humor, are shot through with Bigelow?s dark romanticism; and all of them, by delving deeper into formal, psychological, and thematic patterns than mainstream Hollywood generally cares to, lift their material some way towards the condition of art-house fare.

The complexity of Bigelow?s moral and aesthetic concerns has meant that, though her films are avowedly aimed at a wide audience (?I see film as an extraordinary social tool that could reach tremendous numbers of people?), as a filmmaker she remains a slightly marginal figure. It is a stance reflected in her choice of protagonists: for her, as two decades earlier for Arthur Penn, ?a society has its mirror in its outcasts.? The black-leather bikers of The Loveless , the nomadic vampire clan of Near Dark , the surfing bank robbers of Point Break are all seemingly defined by their opposition to conventional mores, yet they represent an alternative dark-side structure, respectable society?s hidden needs and appetites made manifest. A local citizen, gazing fascinated at the bikers? remote otherness, fantasizes about being ?them for a day or two?; while Bodhi, leader of the surfboard criminals, even claims their heist exploits are aimed at inspiring the downtrodden masses. ?We show them that the human spirit is still alive!? he exults.

Bigelow?s artistic training?prior to becoming a filmmaker, she worked, in her own words, as ?a conceptual artist and poststructuralist theoretician??shows in the stylized and highly textured look of her films. Her images are tactile, often sensual to the point of fetishism: in the opening shot of Blue Steel, light caresses the curves of a handgun in extreme close-up, transforming it into an abstract study of curves and shadows. This close-grained visual intensity becomes another means of subverting and reappropriating generic material, turning it to her own ends?just as her dark, at times nihilistic plots serve as prelude to soft-edged, sentimental denouements in which love conquers all. Not least of the contradictions that fuel her work is that, while not shying away from graphic incidents of violence against women?the rape scene in Strange Days sparked widespread outrage?her films generally feature women as the strongest, most focused characters, acting as mentors and protectors to the self-doubting males.

In her first three solo films Bigelow played these various tensions off against each other, deftly maintaining a balance between mainstream and ?serious? audience appeal. With Strange Days the strategy came unstuck. Bigelow herself describes the film as ?the ultimate Rorschach,? an artifact lending itself to as many interpretations as it has viewers. Drawing its inspiration from an eclectic multiplicity of sources?Hawks, Hitchcock, and Ridley Scott; cyberpunk fiction; and Michael Powell?s Peeping Tom ?the film torments and probes us, forcing us to question not only what we are seeing but our own motives in wanting to watch it. In creating such an intricate, demanding collage, inviting simultaneous engagement on any number of levels, Bigelow may have outpaced her public. Strange Days, though raved over by many if not all reviewers, stalled badly at the box office and dented its director?s career, setting back her long-cherished Joan of Arc project, Company of Angels. Only temporarily, it is to be hoped. Few current directors are better placed than Bigelow to give us a fresh take on the woman who most famously trespassed on sacrosanct male territory.